In the food-processing industry, and in particular in the commercial baking field, rotary molding apparatus has long been used to process particular types of media, e.g., cookie dough, in connection with which such apparatus is known to work well. However, it is also well-established in the industry that rotary molding devices are inherently limited with respect to the type of media to be processed, e.g., in connection with other types of dough formulation, since troublesome problems are encountered in properly filling the die cavities configured in the outer surface of a cylindrical, rotary die roll, as well as in connection with obtaining suitable "release" of the shaped objects from the cavities in which they receive their shape. As a result, the use of rotary molding devices in the food-processing field has been patterned in accordance with the particular types of media (e.g., baking dough) which are to be processed, even though the rotary apparatus itself actually possesses much greater potential, having the inherent advantage of favorable operating economy resulting from the speed and relative ease with which a continuous succession of shaped products may be produced, together with a high order of reliability and durability.
More particularly, rotary molding devices as used in the baking art are typically used to process comparatively stiff, dry and crumbly dough of the type which when baked produces relatively hard cookies (e.g., "windmill" cookies, "animal" cookies, and the typically round wafers which are often made into cookie "sandwiches" by placing a layer of frosting or confection between a pair of them). The reason for this is that such baking dough lends itself well to being compressed into the configured cavities in the rotary die (i.e., the "die roll"), and even more importantly, lends itself to a "clean", complete release from such cavities subsequent to shaping, which is usually accomplished by means of a coarsely-woven cotton or canvas conveyor belt which is pressed tightly against the surface of the die roll and, thus, against the flat base of the shaped cookies while they are still within the die cavities, and then upon further rotation of the die roll and corresponding further movement of the belt by separating the belt from the die roll at a comparatively wide angle of divergence, whereupon the shaped object adheres to the woven belt and is pulled out of the die roll cavity thereby, the object remaining upon the belt and being conveyed away thereby for further processing. Following such extraction, the emptied cavity then rotates a short distance further with the die roll and is once again refilled, in a continuous operation.
While as a general matter it may be true that a great many different substances have physical characteristics generally similar to those of the stiff baking dough referred to above, and are thus quite suitable for use with known rotary molding techniques, there are nonetheless a very great many other materials or media which are not thought to lend themselves to such processing, and are thus not processed by rotary molding techniques even though the rotary apparatus itself has the potential of providing comparatively great operational economy, ease of maintenance, etc. Within this general grouping of materials not thought to be suitable for rotary molding is the category of baking dough known commercially as "soft" dough, from which softer baked goods are made, in particular the "soft" type of cookies regarded as being more like "homemade" cookies, such as are currently popular in the marketplace. The basic reason for this is the fact that such "soft" dough is considerably more flowable as well as more sticky than the drier, crumbly type of dough conventionally processed by rotary molding, as referred to above; in particular, the "soft" dough will not "pack" in the same sense as conventional cookie doughs and is thus much more difficult to force into the configured die cavities and the like so as to completely fill them, and it is also troublesome to retain within the cavities once placed there due to the more fluid nature of the "soft" dough.
As a result, the "soft" types of baking dough are typically processed, e.g., shaped, by such procedures as sheeting the dough and then cutting the sheet into desired shapes, or for example by extruding the dough through a shaping die whose circumferential configuration defines the desired periphery of the wafer to be formed, a cyclically-operating knife or other cutting device then being used to sever off discrete lengths of the extrusion along a plane perpendicular to the axis of the extrusion. While each such process has certain characteristics and features which distinguish it from the others and which may have some relative advantages, none of these other processes have the potential advantages of rotary molding apparatus from the standpoint of speed, operational simplicity, and economy; however, rotary molding apparatus has not been utilized heretofore in conjunction with such "soft" dough or like media, due to the difficulties referred to above, which heretofore have been thought to be so onerous as to preclude use of rotary molders with such media notwithstanding the gains which might otherwise be achievable.